African Rancher's Death Haunts Friend

The Landowner May Be The First Foreign Casualty In The Current Turmoil In Zimbabwe.

August 11, 2002|By Pamela J. Johnson, Sentinel Staff Writer

Tom Raub felt conflicted about his role as a rich, white, game-hunting ranch owner in Zimbabwe.

The retired orthopedic surgeon from West Virginia thought he was getting swept up in a country going downhill fast. A radical land-distribution policy launched two years ago in the southern African nation had created a social and economic crisis.

It made Raub rethink what he was doing with his life.

"Here I am fooling with all these kinds of people -- when I should be doing something worthy," Raub wrote to his Longwood friend, Stan Sandefur. "I don't look on myself very well. I think it would be better to help abandoned black babies. I have to do a lot of thinking."

Raub didn't get a chance to make any drastic changes.

On June 29, his body was found dumped on the side of a road about 80 miles northwest of his ranch in Bulawayo.

Zimbabwean police, who said he died from a blow to the head, are investigating whether the killing is linked to the ongoing unrest.

If so, Raub's would be the first death of a foreigner linked to the country's current turmoil.

As one of Zimbabwe's white ranch owners, Raub was among the roughly 3,000 ranchers ordered off their property by President Robert Mugabe, who is redistributing the land to the poor in his country.

Raub, who moved to Zimbabwe 10 years ago, stayed on. He lived among the squatters who called themselves veterans of the country's independence war.

His defiance -- or yearning to help -- may have cost him his life.

Sandefur, his partner in the ranch, thinks he got out just in time.

He had owned the 40,000-acre game-hunting ranch with Raub since the mid-1990s. Sandefur visited the ranch several times a year until groups of indigenous people began pitching straw huts and occupying the land about two years ago.

"I saw the writing on the wall," said a soft-spoken Sandefur, 49, sitting in his home office sifting though hundreds of letters Raub had sent him over the years.

"The political picture had become very bad. I bowed out of the partnership."

Sandefur, a commercial real-estate agent born and raised in Sanford, sold back to Raub his portion of the land. Although no longer business partners, the pair faxed letters to each other nearly every day.

When Sandefur visited Raub a year ago, he saw the armed poachers swarming the land. Raub walked around unarmed. That unnerved Sandefur.

"I always carried a pistol," he said. "I always felt on guard."

Sandefur implored Raub to leave. Raub's refusal caused tension in their friendship. But his 79-year-old friend's tenacity didn't surprise Sandefur. Raub, he said, was a man with integrity and bulldogish in his opinions.

Raub was smitten by the beauty of Africa and sent Sandefur many hand-drawn sketches of the exotic plants he found on his property. Raub also fed locals the game hunted on his property.

"He was drunk with Africa," Sandefur said.

Officials in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, said Raub was well known for his outspokenness and generosity.

"We felt the loss of Dr. Raub," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Bruce Wharton, who is based in Harare. "He was deeply respected by all sorts of people, blacks and whites."

Wharton said his agency was closely monitoring the investigation into Raub's death.

"We're keeping the pressure on the Zimbabwean police to pursue the investigation," Wharton said. "Because of the terrible and chaotic land-reform process, the murder of any white landowner or farmer immediately raises questions."

At first, Zimbabwean police said Raub was killed in a car jacking.

But days after Raub's death, police discovered his Toyota Land Cruiser truck 62 miles from where his body was found. About $50 and his cell phone were found on his body.

Regardless of who killed Raub, Sandefur said his friend placed himself in a desperate situation living as a rich white landowner in a country threatened by a massive food shortage that could affect nearly half of Zimbabwe's 13 million people.

"He decided to tough it out," Sandefur said. "It cost him his life."

Sandefur said Raub likely would have been among the ranchers who stayed despite last week's deadline.

"He chose that country to live out his final days," Sandefur said. "He fell in love with it and would not leave."

Raub never let go of his dream. In a hand-drawn, detailed map of his ranch, he wrote to Sandefur about how he planned to build a dam. In his scribbled blueprints, he wrote: "Great potential for the future!!"

Sandefur said Raub may have been in the jungles too long and lost some of his grip in reality.

"Africa is not very forgiving," Sandefur said. "His dreams came crumbling down."